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Judge tosses Ohio voter lawsuit

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A federal judge rejected a lawsuit Tuesday seeking an immediate halt on the equipment used in about 25 Ohio counties after a local activist claimed the software could be contaminated by viruses or human manipulation to flip the outcome of the presidential election.

U.S. District Court Judge Greg Frost said in a 10-page opinion that a voting right activist couldn’t prove “actual and imminent harm” in his lawsuit challenging a contract that Secretary of State Jon Husted entered into with Omaha, Neb.-based Election Systems & Software to use new equipment that helps move vote results from county to state computers.

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“Simply put, [the plaintiff] has demonstrated zero likelihood of success based on the evidence presented to this count” for a temporary restraining order, Frost, a George W. Bush appointee, said in a ruling issued about four hours after his court heard oral arguments.

Columbus State Community College political science professor Robert Fatrakis filed the lawsuit Monday against the state and software company, alleging the new equipment could lead to changes on the voting machine results from non-election board officials or a computer bug.

Ohio state officials and the company’s lawyers argued the lawsuit was frivolous and noted the U.S. Election Assistance Commission had cleared use of the new software to help them move the results from county to state computers.

“That’s all this does,” Richard Coglianese, Ohio’s assistant attorney general, argued in court. “It in fact speeds the processing of the count tonight and it increases accuracy because you don’t have somebody there at 1 in the morning still trying to type numbers in.”

“As we all know, someone at a keyboard, numbers are very easy to transpose,” Coglianese added. “This software eliminates human errors.”

Fatrakis, a perennial local Green Party political candidate, urged Frost to issue a temporary restraining order on the state requiring it to conduct hand counts on ballots in the Ohio counties that have installed the software. If the judge didn’t act, Fatrakis’ attorney said the prospect of problems in Ohio could cause “earthshaking irrepairable harm” to the integrity of the presidential election system.

Fatrakis’ case relied on the expert testimony of Michael Duniho, a retired National Security Administration analyst who answered questions during the hearing via telephone from Pima, Ariz. Duniho said the new software installed on the Ohio county and state computers could have a virus that undermined the integrity of the vote totals, he testified.

“We wouldn’t know because the computer is a black box and we don’t know what’s in it and we don’t know how to tell what’s in it,” Duniho said. Hand counts, he added, are “really the only solution to the problem.”

Under cross examination, Duniho acknowledged that he hadn’t reviewed the specific software being used in Ohio.

“There’s nothing here but speculation and guessing by a person who hasn’t even examined the software issue,” Coglianese said.

This is just the start of the "They stole this election" whining to expect when Romney wins a "surprise" victory tonight. You'll hear every excuse ever imagined by the Dems and MSM. It just can be that Obama was a horribly divisive President and we (oh yeah were racists too) voters simply wanted to replace a failed leader.

This is just the start of the "They stole this election" whining to expect when Romney wins a "surprise" victory tonight. You'll hear every excuse ever imagined by the Dems and MSM. It just can be that Obama was a horribly divisive President and we (oh yeah were racists too) voters simply wanted to replace a failed leader.

Stay classy Dems.

And if Romney loses all the republicans will quietly and graciously accept that as a legal election and the will of the people and wish Obama well. Classy people that they are.

So WE have to obey the rules regarding what can't be worn in the polling places (no Romney, Obama tee shirts or paraphernalia) but an entire wall in a polling place can have a mural for one of the candidates. And a New Black Panther can wear his beret or someone checking in voters can wear an Obama cap - does this not illustrate the attitudes learned from the community agitator about everyone NOT playing by the same rules? When the president didn't like what the Congress did, he went around them. The rules don't apply to HIM, so his surrogates don't feel the rules apply to them as well. If everybody had to play by the same rules (as The One has advocated) no one would be exempt from Obamacare. NO ONE.

How on earth can these voting machines be sound if we can't even be certain of the software that's on them!? I know the source code of my FIREFOX BROWSER FOR PETE'S SAKE (open-source)! Programming in-person voting software is incredibly simpler than a web-browser, from a programmers perspective (or at least the process of tallying votes): keep the software-load of the machines visible/verifiable AT ALL TIMES

RE: #7: "Looks like there is voter fraud afterall....and it's being done by Republicans..."''

'Swenson tearfully insisted that it was “only the two” ballots that had been altered.'

It could have been 2, 200, 2000: we just don't know because you can't be trusted. The vote count there has been compromised. Almost everything I've read so far has indicated widespread, if not systematic, voter fraud perpetrated by the right. There was a Virgina volunteer that discarded registration forms of democratic voters: what are they going to do when they show up and cant vote. I also read a Florida district LOSING 1000 early votes from a minority community.

All this after a contractor for the Flordia 2000 election contractor publicly admitted his boss (a politically connected individual) had the ability to tamper with the voting count subsystem without the knowledge of ANYONE who can hold him accountable. Someone might have gone further and said that it DID happen, but I don't have the link offhand:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEzY2tnwExs

When will we get serious about this? I fear the GOP could steal the nation this election (or the next one).

A Pennsylvania voting machine was taken out of service on Election Day 2012 after it was filmed switching a vote for President Barack Obama to one for his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, NBC News has confirmed.

It's great if they have people there to catch and remedy malfunctions, but I think what the suit concerns is the software of the machines: specifically what is the source-code of the software, and what oversight do we have of the development/administration of that software and the machines they run on (as well as every single intermediate device/cable). If we don't have transparency and integrity for all of that, we don't know ANYTHING about what the machines are doing. In fact, catching a malfunction is great photo-op for people committing the fraud, because it can re-assure counter-skeptics like you by misleading them to believe onsite 'technical representatives' are all you need to prevent the theft of the nation, which is what happened in both 2004/2000: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEzY2tnwExs

Edit: Yes, it was about 'untested' reporting software: http://pushbackpolitics.org/20... The Columbus Free Press’ investigation has discovered that the office of the Secretary of State has, at the last minute, contracted for special untested reporting software. Brandi Seske, Elections Council to John Husted, has penned legal memos justifying the skirting of federal and state elections law. Since this story broke, the spokesman for the Secretary of State’s office, Mathew McClellan, has made false and contradictory statements to the press about the nature of the software and its legality. Husted’s office has made every attempt to circumvent the law in order to suppress and now apparently steal the vote on behalf of the GOP.